Parenting Plagues

My experience with two of the ten plagues and what they taught me about parenting.

The Second Plague: Frogs

And the red toy bowl had been officially commandeered for the purposes of this secret mission.

With parental permission I may add (well, sort of.)

And by Friday we were the proud parents of yes, 61 baby frogs.

If you've never seen a baby frog, you haven't lived.

If you've never seen a baby frog, you haven't lived.

Well, that's probably taking it too far.

We're talking about frogs with post-tadpole depression. Tiny creatures who couldn't croak if you tickled them...

61 of them!

Shachar, our jungle-jumping 9-year-old, had discovered that the big muddy puddle at the end of the street was in fact a "Fast Jump to Success" Bootcamp for local amphibians.

With unbounded enthusiasm, enviable dedication and consummate care and professionalism, he and his friend had lovingly transported these creatures to their new home, a disused green plastic sandpit...

Right next to our bedroom window!

They'd decorated it with stones and branches... put in just the right amount
of mud and water... and could easily have gotten employment then and there as
interior designers for the local zoo.

Certainly beats brain cell degeneration in front of the computer or wrestling your siblings to death...

Anyway, where were this kid's parents I hear you ask?

Well, his mother (not the first person I'd choose to come with me on safari) was convinced she'd wake up to find these creatures all over the house...

And as she was cooking for Shabbat she kept checking there were no “extra
ingredients” in the bowl...

OK, so Shachar agreed to move the little darlings to the far end of the garden.

And his father (who discovered the word 'herpetology' is the scientific study of
reptiles and amphibians) just watched him with great pleasure.

A child totally immersed in something he enjoyed doing...

Blissfully getting mud all over his hands and clothes...

Counting his little babies one by one as if they were a rare collection of baseball cards...

And lovingly preparing their new home as if they were foreign VIPs on a state visit.

We could have said, "Get those things out of here!" "Don't do that. You're getting your clothes full of mud." "Stop it. You're taking them out of their natural environment" or "Your mother doesn't allow it"...

After all, that's what parents are supposed to say, aren't they?

But my wife took a deep breath (or two) while I basked in the kid's simplicity and naivety, dreaming of the day he would become a world-famous zoologist.

The Fourth Plague: Wild Animals

Truth is, he wasn't 100lb when he turned up on our doorstep. One of the kids in school was giving it away, Shachar had felt sorry for the cute little puppy and had simply brought him home.

"Okay," said his long-suffering mother, "But he's not stepping one inch inside this house!"

The onus was on me again. Frogs are one thing, but…

Mind you, it wasn't too bad at the beginning, when Shachar could still lift Hetz (Hebrew for arrow) and take him for walks. I just had to schlep huge sacks of dog food up the stairs and schlep the creature to vets for injections and check ups. Ever carried an untrained puppy in your car?

They don't teach you this stuff before you get married.

And it was going to get worse as the canine began to grow.

And grow.

And grow.

Eventually reaching a height of almost 30 inches and weighing in at close to 100 lbs. The vet had identified it as a Cane Corso or Italian Mastiff, highly valued in Italy as a companion, guardian and hunter.

In Israel, not so much.

In the Holy Land, Hetz was unfortunately showing less of the guardian and more of its hunter side, jumping on innocent children, barking at everything and even taking a chunk out of my backside on one particularly forgettable occasion.

Mind you, I was being an amazing parent. Many a time did I take the wild beast for an early-hours-of-the-morning-walk in my pajamas just to let the neighbors sleep. Shachar of course never heard him because he'd put the darn thing's kennel right under our bedroom window again.

Credit where credit is due though. Shachar was very attached to him and showed great care, maturity and responsibility for feeding, grooming and the like, but things were getting a little out of hand.

Have you ever tried bundling a 100 lb Cane Corso with stomach problems into your car?

I won’t disturb you with the details.

We paid good money to have the thing trained but there seems to be no Ritalin substitute for dogs yet. Arrow just kept on growing, becoming too big and risky for Shachar to handle.

A decision had to made.

We left it to Shachar. Pure parenting genius…

I will never forget the day we handed Hetz over to the guy who had trained him. He even offered Shachar the opportunity to come and visit him if he wanted but Shachar was heartbroken. He couldn't face it.

He kept Hetz's leash and bowl as mementos and refused to let us throw out the makeshift kennel he had so lovingly constructed.

The kid was absolutely inconsolable.

Even today, over three years later, he doesn't like us joking about his Italian friend.

And that makes me think. Do we really know just how much feeling, depth and potential our children have within their hearts? Why do we sometimes restrict their passion? And can we give them the space and security to share it with us?

It's an ongoing challenge for all parents. But maybe you can start with some goldfish…

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About the Author

Danny Verbov specializes in writing and producing beautifully crafted legacy books, transmitting a family's history, values and messages to their future generations. Contact him at dverbov@014.net.il or through his Facebook page.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 3

(3)
Tova Saul,
April 3, 2014 3:08 PM

pointers for parents and animals

1. Never allow your kids to remove wild animals from their environment. It's important for kids to know that just because they see an interesting creature in nature does not give them the right to own it or tamper with it in any way. Just marvel at it without interfering.

2. I am just guessing that the dog was too much to handle for 3 reasons: It was still young (less than 2 years), was not given daily time to run off energy off leash, and was not neutered.

My conclusion is mixed: On the one hand, the parents allowed pets in the home and taught Shachar compassion by rescuing the puppy, but on the other hand, they didn't quite know the needs of non-human beings.

As for the parents of the kid that was trying to give the puppy away----- someone should explain to them to get their dog spayed. In Israel, 100's of 1000's of healthy dogs and cats are euthanized each year because there aren't enough homes for all the dogs and cats flooding our shelters.

(2)
David Baron,
April 3, 2014 2:36 PM

Pleasant Surprise -- Great Article

Yes, I was expecting plague 3.

OK, for me, it was insects. Not lice but most everything other kind big enough to handle, plus. My mom, of course, was simply thrilled.

They were my only friends then, actually. No noise, no bites (I chose friendlier friends!), little bother. But a great mixed menagerie for sure.

(1)
Julia Silver,
March 31, 2014 5:45 PM

Lucky Shachar!

It's so true that we stifle our kids' creativity and passions simply because they make us uncomfortable. Thanks for the reminder!

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Since honey is produced by bees, and bees are not a kosher species, how can honey be kosher?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud (Bechoros 7b) asks your very question! The Talmud bases this question on the principle that “whatever comes from a non-kosher species is non-kosher, and that which comes from something kosher is kosher.”

So why is bee-honey kosher? Because even though bees bring the nectar into their bodies, the resultant honey is not a 'product' of their bodies. It is stored and broken down in their bodies, but not produced there. (see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 81:8)

By the way, the Torah (in several places such as Exodus 13:5) praises the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey." But it may surprise you to know that the honey mentioned in the verse is actually referring to date and fig honey (see Rashi there)!

In 1809, a group of 70 disciples of the great Lithuanian sage the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Israel, after traveling via Turkey by horse and wagon. The Vilna Gaon set out for the Holy Land in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However he inspired his disciples to make the move, and they became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel. (A large contingent of chassidic Jews arrived in Tzfat around the same time.) The leader of the 1809 group, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, settled in Tzfat, and six years later moved to Jerusalem where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The early years were fraught with Arab attacks, earthquakes, and a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Israel authored, Pe'at Hashulchan, a digest of the Jewish agricultural laws relating to the Land of Israel. (He had to rewrite the book after the first manuscript was destroyed in a fire.) The location of his grave remained unknown until it was discovered in Tiberias, 125 years after his death. Today, the descendants of that original group are amongst the most prominent families in Jerusalem.

When you experience joy, you feel good because your magnificent brain produces hormones called endorphins. These self-produced chemicals give you happy and joyful feelings.

Research on these biochemicals has proven that the brain-produced hormones enter your blood stream even if you just act joyful, not only when you really are happy. Although the joyful experience is totally imaginary and you know that it didn’t actually happen, when you speak and act as if that imaginary experience did happen, you get a dose of endorphins.

These chemicals are naturally produced by your brain. They are totally free and entirely healthy.

Many people find that this knowledge inspires them to create more joyful moments. It’s not just an abstract idea, but a physical reality.

Occasionally, when I walk into an office, the receptionist greets me rudely. Granted, I came to see someone else, and a receptionist's disposition is immaterial to me. Yet, an unpleasant reception may cast a pall.

A smile costs nothing. Greeting someone with a smile even when one does not feel like smiling is not duplicity. It is simply providing a pleasant atmosphere, such as we might do with flowers or attractive pictures.

As a rule, "How are you?" is not a question to which we expect an answer. However, when someone with whom I have some kind of relationship poses this question, I may respond, "Not all that great. Would you like to listen?" We may then spend a few minutes, in which I unburden myself and invariably begin to feel better. This favor is usually reciprocated, and we are both thus beneficiaries of free psychotherapy.

This, too, complies with the Talmudic requirement to greet a person in a pleasant manner. An exchange of feelings that can alleviate someone's emotional stress is even more pleasant than an exchange of smiles.

It takes so little effort to be a real mentsch.

Today I shall...

try to greet everyone in a pleasant manner, and where appropriate offer a listening ear.

With stories and insights,
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